2.2. Negotiations

Starting up

Negotiations or debates are unavoidable parts of our lives. Sometimes you might find yourself in a situation where winning a debate or a negotiation is a must in order to achieve your goals yet find that you are losing ground.

1 In what situations do you negotiate? Who do you negotiate with? Think about both your work and your private life.

2 What makes an effective negotiator?

3 How important are trust and liking in negotiations?

4 Is there an important difference between the way you might approach one-off negotiations (e.g. selling your car) and negotiations as part of a long-term business relationship?

5 How can you avoid being manipulated in a negotiation with a more experienced negotiator?

Reading

1. Read the paragraph below. What is the aim of negotiation?

Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties, intended to reach an understanding, resolve point of difference, or gain advantage in outcome of dialogue, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, to craft outcomes to satisfy various interests of two people/parties involved in negotiation process. Negotiation is a process where each party involved in negotiating tries to gain an advantage for themselves by the end of the process. Negotiation is intended to aim at compromise.

2. Negotiations: Distributive and Integrative

We use the two types of negotiation described below all the time. Occasionally, these two different forms of negotiation even overlap. By understanding their nature, we will be better prepared when faced with different situations. By learning more, we can improve both our interpersonal and professional relationships, through an increased awareness of the negotiation process utilized in our everyday lives.

Scan the paragraph below and highlight the following:

-the purpose of distributive and integrative negotiations

- the primary difference between distributive and integrative negotiations

Distributive negotiation is also sometimes called positional or hard-bargaining negotiation. It tends to approach negotiation on the model of haggling in a market. In a distributive negotiation, each side often adopts an extreme position, knowing that it will not be accepted, and then employs a combination of guile, bluffing, and brinksmanship in order to cede as little as possible before reaching a deal. Distributive bargainers conceive of negotiation as a process of distributing a fixed amount of value.

The term distributive implies that there is a finite amount of the thing being distributed or divided among the people involved. Sometimes this type of negotiation is referred to as the distribution of a “fixed pie.” There is only so much to go around, but the proportion to be distributed is variable. Distributive negotiation is also sometimes called win-lose because of the assumption that one person's gain results in another person's loss. A distributive negotiation often involves people who have never had a previous interactive relationship, nor are they likely to do so again in the near future.

In the real world of negotiations, two parties face off with the goal of getting as much as possible. The seller wants to go after the best price they can obtain, while the buyer wants to pay the lowest price to achieve the best bargain. It's really just good old plain haggling, which is not all that much different from playing a tug of war.

Integrative negotiation is also sometimes called interest-based or principled negotiation. It is a set of techniques that attempts to improve the quality and likelihood of negotiated agreement by providing an alternative to traditional distributive negotiation techniques. While distributive negotiation assumes there is a fixed amount of value (a “fixed pie”) to be divided between the parties, integrative negotiation often attempts to create value in the course of the negotiation (“expand the pie”). It focuses on the underlying interests of the parties rather than their arbitrary starting positions, approaches negotiation as a shared problem rather than a personalized battle, and insists upon adherence to objective, principled criteria as the basis for agreement.

The word integrative implies some cooperation. Integrative negotiation often involves a higher degree of trust and the forming of a relationship. It can also involve creative problem-solving that aims to achieve mutual gains. It is also sometimes called win-win negotiation.